Hard drives are typically housed in a server chassis and are used for storing information in a server. Conventionally, the hard drives can be housed at the front of the server chassis for access to the hard drives for the purpose of replacement or maintenance. At times, it may be desirable to maximize the storage capacity of the server by housing many hard drives inside the chassis. However, due to space limitations of the server chassis, only a limited amount of hard drives can be housed in the server at once, and, of those hard drives, only a limited number of hard drives can be easily accessible from the front for the purpose of replacement or maintenance.
The hard drives themselves may be stored in retractable trays that extend horizontally from the server chassis. Traditional trays are supported from the sides, and require a certain degree of strength, rigidity and mechanical complexity to support the tray and mounted hard drive. This requires a minimum width in an environment with space limitations. The structure to support the sides is also cumbersome and expensive to manufacture.